Which seems to be our go to response to prove something or other, because bombing and invading shit out of countries in the region has proved to be successful thus far.
The use of chemical weapons is a war crime and needs to be punished, this is the truth however when a country is in a civil war who do you bomb and what will be the outcome, more of the same?
We can hold our heads up high and......oh wait....him gosh we haven't applied the war crime rule very consistently in the past, even when we have committed them ourselves.
We have upheld dictators since WWII only to watch them fall and be replaced by the religious equivalent of a secular dictator with extra sprinkles.
The question still remains the same since the Ottoman Empire crumbled into dust and the two blocks of the cold war decided to play who could be the dumbest of them all in the region. I wont even get into the Palestinian question for now.
We have spent so much time playing which side we want to be on so that we can access the riches and strategic importance of the region that we forgot the vast majority of the people who just want to live their lives in peace.
So basically we end up picking sides for our own reasons at the same time losing whatever credibility we had to broker solutions in the future. This has been going on for a very long time H/T to Alexander III of Macedonia for reminding me for just how long.
Whichever side we support it's a bit like the British and French taking sides in the American War of Independence it will be for our own Imperial reasons and hence suspect. Trouble is we have been playing this game for too long in the region and we end up being part of the problem, and even end up being the common enemy.
How to change this historical mess, how to become a serious broker for the mass of people across the region.
We have to deal with the elephant in the room and broker an equitable deal for both Palestinians and Israelis a conflict heading towards its 90th anniversary of the British Mandate for Palestine [24th September 1923 ended 14th May 1948]] with the aim of creating a homeland for the Jewish people.
We have to work out how to help the region rather than, invade, torture, bomb, assassinate, destabilize, squabble over territory/influence and in general stop supporting every nasty piece of work who claims to be our ally. You know what we have done so far? Just look to we helped before, Shahs, Kings and Princes, Military dictators, The Taliban, etc etc.
By all means go a head and blow something up, I'm just wondering what it will solve and I doubt it will stop the bloodshed and pain for one instant. Punish someone by all means, if only to assuage own your feeling of impotence, it has worked so well in the past.
The answer is not simple, in fact its has now become nigh on impossible to get out of the logic we have been locked into for decades [if not millennia, hi Alexander].
The question is not who to bomb, the question is how can we help rather than hinder, we cannot rewrite history but it is a crying shame if we keep on repeating past catastrophes.
I wish that I knew the answer, had a magic wand, but Palestine is still the logical place to start.